


the ghosts are fading (yet here we stand)

by petroltogo



Series: Bitter Sunday [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bitter Sunday, Bitter Tony, Bitterness, Civil War through Wanda's eyes, Everyone has a fatal flaw, Fatal Flaws AU, Gen, It's all a giant mess, Steve doesn't know how to accept help, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony never puts himself first, Unresolved Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Wanda holds grudges, bitter Wanda, not a fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 07:01:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14327118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: "But in this world, the one she lives in, the one where Steve is too proud to accept help, and Stark is too loyal to abandon a fool’s mission, and Barnes is too real to be a ghost, there was never another way this was going to end."Civil War AU in which everyone has a fatal flaw and it changes nothing at all, except for how it changes everything. Or: That one time Wanda and Tony were honest with each other and it didn't fix anything.





	the ghosts are fading (yet here we stand)

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I remember that I could have loved Wanda Maximoff. Sometimes I remember that I would have adored her if she had stayed a villain or become a anti-hero. This is the result of one of those times.
> 
> Happy reading!

Stark is standing in the common living room, a half-full glass of fine whiskey in one hand, eyes fixated on the far-away horizon. In the dim light, Wanda can only see his outline against the window, all sharp edges and rustling fabric, the soft ‘clink’ where he taps his finger against the glass.

It’s four AM, and for the first time the two of them are alone with each other. Wanda almost turns on her heels and leaves. Returns to her room that is beautiful and brilliant and empty, will always be empty, because Pietro is gone, gone where she can’t follow, and that is the one thing she can’t forgive. She never will.

Steve’s blank face and red-rimmed eyes haunt her though, and it’s an easier ghost to bear than her brother, so Wanda stays. She doesn’t want to get involved, doesn’t want to interact with Stark more than she absolutely has to, but she’s starting to get to know Clint and Romanov and Sam–and she knows nobody else will do it in her stead.

“Why did you do it?” Wanda asks, the question they’ve all been wondering for the past few days. “Why did you reject Steve?”

She doesn’t like Stark–will never like him, because it isn’t in her to forgive a slight, real or imagined it may be–but over the past months she has gotten better at reading him. And though Wanda doesn’t like it, she knows Stark loves Steve. Maybe more than he admits to himself, maybe more than he loves anyone else. And yet he’s rejected Steve, once the man finally opened his eyes after getting hit with a clue train or two, curtsey of Sam Wilson.

But it doesn’t make sense, no matter how often Wanda turns the events over in her head. Because she knows Stark, knows him better than she’ll ever admit. Stark’s fatal flaw is loyalty–and she’ll never forgive that, never forgive that the man who’s cost her her parents has a flaw so pure, because holding grudges is what Wanda does–and he won’t ever stop loving Steve. For all his bluster and denial, even Stark has to know that, and yet he’s thrown it all away.  _It doesn’t make sense_.

Stark makes a scoffing sound that has her blood boiling almost on reflex. “Why is everyone so concerned with mine and Cap’s nonexistent relationship? Seriously, witchy, get a life. So Cap’s moping a bit ‘cause his pride got hurt. He’ll get over it.”

Wanda clenches her hands into fists at the careless words. Refuses to let them fool her. She knows better, knows best where to aim her hits to really hurt, and there’s only so much anyone can fake. Even Tony Stark.

“That’s not an answer.”

“Look,  _sweetheart_ , it may not fit into your tiny, narrow-minded world view, but I’m not a complete asshole. Cap’s vulnerable and confused right now. He’s still hurting over Peggy–don’t tell me he isn’t, you’ve seen him when he comes back from those visits–and still coming to terms with the whole bisexuality business. It’s not the right time for him to get in a relationship.”

Wanda can’t see Stark’s face as he says those things, but there’s no missing the bitterness in his voice. If she trusted him, just a little bit, she might have believed it. She might have let it go.

“Oh  _please_ ,” she mocks instead. “You’re superheroes. There’s never gonna be a right time or place for you. Those are just excuses.”

There’s a long moment of silence where Wanda waits for Stark to deny it and Stark doesn’t bother. Still, it takes her by surprise when he speaks up, quiet and thoughtful, and as close to honest as he ever gets around her.

“Peggy is a ghost of missed chances and haunting what ifs.” He mulls over that for a moment, like he’s just revealed something profound and unexpected. “I could have lived with that,” Stark continues eventually, voice lower than before. “Ghosts fade over time. I could have waited.”

A small part of Wanda wonders at what cost Stark could have done it, but that’s not the point he’s trying to make, and she supposes it doesn’t matter.

“But  _Barnes_.” Stark barks a sudden laugh. “Barnes is alive. And Steve will never stop looking for him.” He turns then, and though his face is cast in shadows Wanda knows he’s looking straight at her. “I could have lived with a ghost, but Barnes is more than that. Sooner or later, he’ll remember that. And when the time comes, there’s nothing Steve won’t do to get him back.”

There’s something heavy in Stark’s voice, something like longing or sadness, but Wanda shrugs it off. She refuses to feel bad, can’t feel bad, not for Stark.

“So you threw Steve’s affection for you back in his face because you’re jealous and refuse to share him with his best friend one day in the far off future,” Wanda snarks instead, mean and cutting, and still not quite as cruel as she intends to be.

Surprisingly, shockingly – or perhaps not, because it’s 4 AM and the dim light has a way of stripping off masks like nothing else in the world – Stark doesn’t get mad or defensive, or laughs that sarcastic laugh of his and disappears behind a swell of meaningless words meant only to confuse and insincere smiles that blind.

He tilts his head instead, and there’s a calmness about him that unsettles Wanda more than showy grins and pretty lies ever could. “I’m protecting myself,” Stark says, matter-of-fact. “I’m protecting Steve. The team. The fucking world. My fatal flaw is loyalty, Maximoff.” He chuckles darkly. “Sometimes it seems like none of you have an idea what that means.”

There’s a grimness in his voice that tells Wanda she should back off. But of course she takes it as a challenge instead. “So tell me,” she demands, fierce and unflinching.

Stark meets her gaze fearlessly. In the darkness his eyes glint like glimmering ember, still burning hot after the fire is long gone. “Eventually, Steve will choose Barnes over me.” There’s that same cool certainty again, a recounting of facts that shouldn’t sound so unfeeling. “And if we weren’t just on the same team, weren’t just friends, there’s no way I would see it as anything but betrayal.”

 _Of course not_ , Wanda thinks but doesn’t say, because she won’t ever agree with Stark out loud,  _because that’s what it would be_.

Stark’s parting words are light, deceptively so, like everything else about him, and Wanda feels a cold chill running down her spine that has nothing to do with the temperature or Pietro’s ghost lingering around every corner she sees.

“You’ve ever seen what happens to loyalty when you break it?” Stark asks, all casual like, as though the magnitude of what he’s just announced, what he’s confessed, what he so firmly believes, doesn’t bother him at all.

Wanda doesn’t seek Stark out again. She doesn’t tell Steve about their conversation, about Stark’s reasons, either.

Two weeks later, when Steve tells her with renewed determination that he’s going to bring Bucky home, get him the help he needs and deserves, and then sort things out with Tony the way he should have done years ago, Wanda doesn’t ask him why he didn’t do it years ago. She doesn’t tell him the futility of trying to fix something he’d never consider broken.

She smiles and she wishes him luck, and if she regrets her decision later on, Pietro’s ghost is the only one that will ever know.

*

They’re standing at an airport in Germany, facing each other like the enemies they’ve become, caught up in a clash of ideals none of them saw coming. And yet, with Stark’s words ringing mockingly in her ears, Wanda wonders not for the first time if maybe this, right here, is where they were always going to end up.

She stares at Vision, the first true friend she’s ever made, and she sees the world as clearly as she always has. 

She sees the line that has been drawn, the sides that have been chosen. She sees the side she chose – because she doesn’t have it in her to forgive Stark, because holding grudges is what she does, and she hates him for building weapons, hates Pietro for leaving her, hates Steve for asking her to do this when he’s always, always going to choose Bucky over all of them, but the knowledge that she'll grow to hate Steve by the end of this is easier to bear than learning to forgive – sees the shadows and demons haunting each and every one of them.

She sees Stark, and she knows that he won’t back up, won’t stop, will do whatever it takes to protect Barnes in the end, because that’s what Steve wants, and Stark will always put others before himself. She sees Steve, and she knows that he’ll never stand down, won’t stop, won’t ever put his trust in Stark, because he won’t ever take a chance when it comes to Bucky.

She sees them, and she remembers her mother telling her that people are no more defined by their fatal flaws than they allow themselves to be. And she thinks that maybe, in a different world, Stark and Steve could have overcome their flaws together, could have been great together. 

But in this world, the one she lives in, the one where Steve is too proud to accept help and Stark is too loyal to abandon a fool’s mission, and Barnes is too real to be a ghost, there was never another way this was going to end.

In this world, Pietro’s ghost is slowly fading the way ghosts always do, and Wanda hates him for it, despite the fact that she’s tired, so, so tired of hate. In this world, there are Stark’s words, mocking, warning, exhausted, inevitable.

_“You’ve ever seen what happens to loyalty when you break it?”_

Wanda wonders if the others see the fallout of this mess as clearly in their minds as she does. She wonders if it would have made a difference if they did.

Probably not. After all, their fight might only be about to start, but the choices that truly matter, the choices that brought them here, are the ones they’ve already made a long time ago. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always welcome! I'm really curious to hear what you think about this one!
> 
> Feel free to check out my tumblr for more content: [tonystarktogo](http://tonystarktogo.tumblr.com/).


End file.
